


let me make it alright

by skyywards



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: ( moira is trans btw ), Aftercare, Angst, Eventual Smut, F/F, Masturbation, angela helps her tho, angie kind of just gives moira a, handjob, moira’s just sad, nice, science wives, sigh, slurp, tags :, ugh she needs love and affection and all she does is to push others away, yay, ♡
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-06-24 02:22:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15620403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyywards/pseuds/skyywards
Summary: Moira sits on one of the infirmary cots, ankles crossed and thighs spread apart a little. Her shoes are dusty and likely to be ruined by the end of this mission. Her arms rest in her lap idly, palms turned upward to face herself.And she's crying.Tears dribbling down her face and to her chin and jaw, dripping down and onto the dusty, wooden floor, her lap, her hands. She's crying in silence, there's no sound coming from her except a ragged breath that she takes just there and she feels terrible.





	1. Chapter 1

Moira sits on one of the infirmary cots, ankles crossed and thighs spread apart a little. Her shoes are dusty and likely to be ruined by the end of this mission. Her arms rest in her lap idly, palms turned upward to face herself.

And she's crying. 

Tears dribbling down her face and to her chin and jaw, dripping down and onto the dusty, wooden floor, her lap, her hands. She's crying in silence, there's no sound coming from her except a ragged breath that she takes just there and she feels terrible. 

The light that shines through the jalousies of the dusty windows in the war-worn hospital Overwatch has settled in, the only building left to stand in the entire area of a few miles, reaches her shoulders and makes them feel aflame. 

It's in the middle of winter and Moira should be freezing — and she is, internally, because she feels cold, cold, so cold — but there's this soft, warm light on her shoulders and back and it's comforting. 

But it doesn't stop her tears from falling. 

She feels like she's going to break. 

She is breaking already. 

She is broken already. 

Moira bites her bottom lip, chapped and raw and desperate to not let a sound spill past and echo in the empty, unoccupied room, reach the hallway and draw attention to herself. She doesn't want that. She doesn't want to go and help Ziegler with patching up scratches and cuts from evacuated civilians, either, or be in an elbow-deep surgery to save a soldier. 

She doesn't know what she wants. 

She doesn't know what she doesn't want. 

She doesn't know anything. She feels hollow and empty and useless and cold and it's all just because of the fact that she's on a mission that's in Ireland and her hometown is wrecked. It's not more than a village, really. A little town close to a larger city she doesn't want to think of. It wakes too many memories inside of her. 

They've been there today. Sought for survivors. Sought for remains. Nothing. The whole village, the whole city next to it, a wrecked pile of ash and dirt and shredded houses, fires burning like the sun on her shoulders. She'd barely recognized the town anymore. 

Another tear slips down her cheek. It's like her heart is crushed with the remains of her memories that were destroyed. She hasn't told Reyes that she used to live here. Maybe he would have offered for her to stay here and take Ziegler with himself instead. But even if he had, her pride would have gotten the best of her and she would have come along as assurance nonetheless. 

What a fatal mistake. 

She's desperate to not let anyone see her in this state. She keeps quiet, bites at the knuckles of her hand, bites at her lip, forces the tears to skim down her face in silence, not making a sound. 

But then the inevitable happens as tears drop down onto her sweater. The door opens and Moira's head snaps up, eyes wide and bloodshot and teary and her vision is blurry for a second before she recognizes who stands there, in a royal blue uniform and white stockings — also dusty, not the usual pristine white it was when they started this mission — and the red kitten heels that match the large cross at her sleeve to show that she's a medic. 

It's Angela Ziegler. 

Her golden hair is more of an ash blonde and it hangs from beneath her beret tiredly and the only thing that hasn't dulled yet are her eyes, blue and bright and wide in shock as she examines O'Deorain's expression and how the salty liquid stains at her chin and cheeks are renewed by more tears descending down and to her jaw. 

They don't say a word until Moira chokes back a sob and Angela enters the room fully, closing the door behind herself. "Moira," she says, and Moira shakes her head as though to dismiss her. "No," she replies and Angela can only smile sadly. 

She doesn't ask what happened, she doesn't persist. Moira's grateful for it, another tear running down her cheek. She can imagine how shocked Angela must be, seeing her in such a state. But she can't bring herself to get up and leave and run from her. It's just Angela, after all. 

And even though they argue and even fight and Moira wants to hold her by her throat most of the time, Angela's the only person in the world that's closest to knowing who Moira O'Deorain really is and she's the only person who Moira trusts. 

She sits down next to her and Moira turns her head away. Angela slips a hand into her own sweaty, warm one, and she brushes her thumb over her knuckles, swiping gently. 

The geneticist can barely believe that she allows her to do that. And not just that, she can also barely believe that she allows herself to be this weak, in front of someone, even, but she trusts Angela and she feels a little bit safe with her. 

Safer than with the rest of the team, the world, at least. 

Moira feels another sob drawn from her chest as her lungs tighten as she suppresses her tears and wails and her body's shaking with it. The angel next to herself gives her hand a gentle squeeze and slips off the cot to be crouched in front of Moira, taking both of her hands into her own ones. "Moira," she mutters and coaxes a soft whimper from Moira's tight throat.

Her features are contorted with fear, sadness etched onto her face and Angela sighs. "Moira," she whispers and leans up to wipe her tears with her sleeve. "Calm down. Please. You have to." 

The Irishwoman shakes her head slowly and Angela realizes that this is not something minuscule. 

( Though she knew that from the start, she's never seen O'Deorain cry, never heard her sob. This must be something grave. ) 

She gives up on saying her name and instead, she holds her hands and waits for Moira to be finished with crying it all out. That doesn't happen, though. She's crying for another five, even ten minutes nonstop. Angela feels her legs grow weak and tense from the uncomfortable position she's in and it hurts when she gets up to stand before Moira and sit back down next to her. 

What could this be about? Angela doesn't know, she hasn't got the tiniest clue, not the foggiest idea. It could be anything. Maybe it's the war getting to her. The destruction everywhere, the pain and agony of the people they've managed to evacuate and save.  
Maybe she was reminded of something terrible. She doesn't know. 

And she's not sure if, with how hard Moira's sobbing against her shoulder as she wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close, she wants to know. 

Angela sighs and presses a long, hard kiss against her temple, causing the crumbled woman by her side to stop breathing for a split second and freeze, going absolutely stiff, before she bursts out into tears once again. 

It's about another five minutes later that Moira finally comes to still against her, wipes her tears with the sleeve of her sweater almost violently and sits up ramrod straight. Angela lets go of her and observes her behaviour, her expression, her body posture, trying to read anything into it. 

Her face is still red and her eyes bloodshot and watery and her nose is running and stuffy and she sniffs, holding herself close again, shrinking back into what little warm her sweater had to offer, cowering behind that wall of soft fabric. 

Angela extends a hand to rub over her back comfortingly, but Moira shakes her head even before her fingers can reach her back and Angela pulls back instantly. She doesn't want to make Moira uncomfortable. She has to be careful. 

She considers asking Moira if she's alright, but that seems like such a terribly dumb question to ask, with how the geneticist's prodigious mind is circling around whatever problems she has right now, her gaze far, far away, dull and lacking any emotion, even sadness. 

Her lips part and she wants to say her name again, catch her attention, but Moira looks so deeply into thought that she fears that she might lash out at her. 

She's seen how Moira can get when angered. She's seen how she yelled anyone crossing her path into the mud beneath their feet, she's seen how she stamped them all down, fuming. Her words had been so harsh, so rude, so careless, she'd even slapped someone picking up a fight with her before. Struck right across the poor man's face. That must have hurt. 

And she doesn't want to anger Moira. Not because she's afraid of being hurt, but because she looks despondent and she's afraid of making matters worse for Moira by confusing her emotions. 

Moira sighs into her sweater and lets her head hang low, tears pricking at her eyes and she sniffles. "Ziegler," she mumbles and Angela's ripped from her thoughts, instantly focusing onto O'Deorain. "Moira?" She asks softly and Moira rubs her left eye. She looks so exhausted. Mentally and physically. Anguish. 

The redhead peeks at her from beneath wet, copper eyelashes and simply looks at her like that. "I," her voice sounds scratchy and weak and she clears her throat to try again, "I would appreciate it if you wouldn't tell anyone about this encounter." 

Angela nods. What else can she do? 

"See, I, I got to see my hometown this morning, or better said," she swallows, starting to have difficulties breathing and Angela soothes her quickly by taking her hand back into hers. "or better said, w-what's left of it." She exhales shakily and Angela nods slowly. 

She understands how terrible that must be for Moira. Her memories must have flooded her mind as she'd walked through the remaining ruins of her hometown. 

Moira inhales deeply to calm herself, leg jiggling in discomfort and anxiety. Angela waits for her to possibly add something to that simple statement. Nothing comes. She sighs. Moira clears her throat again and sniffs, her hand laying in Angela's palm limply. 

"Moira," she says. 

No answer. She turns her head away again. Angela bites her plush bottom lip and doesn't say anything else, just holds Moira's hand and swipes her thumb over her knuckles steadily. Time ticks on. Slowly. 

Angela doesn't know for how long they've been sitting there and how many attempts Moira has made to stifle her quiet tears that have started running down her cheeks again. She hasn't checked her watch. She hasn't spoken up again. Neither has Moira. 

But she can hear the faint pained screams from downstairs, in other rooms, far away from this one at the very top of the building, the only small chamber that isn't filled with meds and screaming patients yet. 

Angela swallows thickly and screws her eyes shut, sending a quiet prayer up to god. Help. Just let all of this end. Please. 

And again, the younger doctor listens to her coworker's shallow breaths — slowing down, calming, evening out like waves getting lost in the ocean. She's soothed herself again. 

Angela admires how she doesn't seek the contact in such a moment of utter weakness and hurt and possibly despair. She wouldn't have lasted five minutes if Moira had been in her place, holding her hand. She would have broken down against her shoulder and sunken into her embrace long ago. 

But Moira is an individual of her own. Angela knows that and she doesn't push her, she respects that and her wishes. 

The redhead sniffs for the millionth time today and then, her hand tightens around Angela's and she gives the blonde a gentle squeeze before she lets go and stands. 

Angela lifts her gaze from the dusty ground and looks up at Moira, at her backside. She extends a hand to tug the hem of her sweater back down into a more proper position and looks at Moira, into her icy blue, reddened eyes, at her flushed cheeks, at her frontside as soon as she turns. 

And in true Moira O'Deorain fashion, the moment ends with a curt nod and a hasty "Thank you" and Moira turns on her heel and heads to the door to leave. 

The blonde is tempted to jump up and run after her, beg her to stay, ask her to not go to work in this state. But she knows that they both have a duty. 

And that duty is to help the poor hurt or even worse, dying souls that are delivered into the lazaret they've built up in this dusty and halfway broken down hospital. 

Angela glances after her and watches how she hesitates a split second before opening the door and exiting into the hallway, pushing the sleeves of her blue uniform up to her elbows. 

They both know that the half hour they spent in this room had been a forbidden one, a waste of time, half an hour they should have spent elbow deep in other people's bodies, blood coating them all over, screams and sobs and orders shouted around themselves. 

But Angela can't bring herself to regret it. She sighs and gets up and closes her eyes. Another prayer. Let this hell end, please. Make it stop. Please. 

And then she leaves the small room as well, to help Moira patch up everyone downstairs.

 

 

Moira looks exhausted as she has the day before. She's stooped, hands resting on the edge of the infirmary cot another corpse lays on, covered by a muddy and halfway torn blanket, blood soaked. Too many of these blankets have been used as improvisatory bandages. They're running out of munition, too.

She looks exhausted, as everyone around here is and Reyes shoots Angela a look of the kind what's wrong with her. The blonde lifts her shoulders in a wordless shrug in response to dismiss the silent conversation easily and approaches her. She doesn't want Reyes to know what she told her yesterday. 

She lifts a hand and rests it on Moira's back, causing her to jolt and tense up, head whipping around to look at Angela. She's been in thought, Angela concludes, and before she can apologize for startling her, Moira faces the corpse again. A small figure, one of a child. The blonde swallows down the stone in her throat. 

"How much longer will the combats go on," Moira asks, but it's said so dryly, her throat is so dry, that it sounds like a sentence and not like a question. Angela clears her throat before speaking. "I don't know." She coughs into her shoulder. "I don't know."

Too much smoke in the air and Moira sighs and stands upright and fishes for her package of Marlboros and the lighter that she keeps on herself all the time. Angela can see how much effort it takes her to not let her eyes fall shut and drown in the comfortable darkness of sleep. She's tired, as everyone around here is. 

And it doesn't look like this will stop anytime soon. And that's what worries Angela: she doesn't know for how much longer the meds will last, for how much longer the team will last. They're two days over the estimated end of the fights already. Seventh of January, today's the ninth. Or so she thinks. She doesn't know. She feels numb. 

Maybe that's why Moira smokes. Maybe it grants her warmth, inner warmth, the trickle of nicotine sinking into her blood waking her a little. She doesn't know. 

She doesn't know anything except that she wants this hell to end and go home and never hear the word war ever again. 

Moira lights a cigarette that's caught in between her teeth, shielding the flame with her palm and tucks the lighter away once a puff of white smoke rises and mingles with the air of the room. She opens a window, inhales nicotine and exhales smoke. Steadily. Slowly. 

Maybe it's some kind of calming ritual to her, Angela thinks. Maybe it allows her to relax a little. 

They're surrounded by hundreds of beds with corpses on them and Angela knows that there's no way they can keep them all in here on beds. They'll have to throw them together and use the remaining infirmary beds for wounded and injured and near death individuals. 

Moira sighs on a lungful of smoke and turns to Angela, staring at her with a look she can't pinpoint and explain. It's like looking into a frozen lake on a morning the zombie apocalypse starts. Her vision is blurry. Everything crashes and burns and screams around you. But then there's this sea. It's calm. It's quiet. It blurs the reality, deafens it out a little. That's what it feels like as she looks into Moira's eyes. They're the icy sea. 

But beneath, hell is only starting. That's Moira's mind. Her tousled thoughts. Angela sighs as well. This has to stop. She doesn't want to lose more agents. She doesn't want to lose more patients and stack them in this deathly silent room that smells like decay and smoke. She doesn't want to see Moira crying again because she's shaken to the core by the destruction this war has caused. And it's only the beginning. 

That is what truly worries her. 

And she knows that when Moira exhales another soft cloud of smoke and stares into her eyes with a special kind of despair, she's not alone by thinking that. 

Angela gulps down a lungful of the terrible air and sniffs. "Come on," she mumbles. Moira sighs and flicks ash off her cigarette. It flickers down and onto the dusty floor. The blonde stands and watches, extending a dirtied, bloodied white gloved hand for Moira to take with her own gloved hand. 

The redhead sighs again and links their fingers and Angela tugs her out of the room. Moira throws one last glance onto the child's cot. Such a feeble life. Ended so ruthlessly by the merciless agony of war. Her face knits. She inhales more nicotine. More drugs to distract herself from this terrible truth.

Angela looks up at Moira and lets go of her hand as soon as she tugged her outside and the door shut behind them. 

She glances at Angela and earns herself a small glare — it’s her cigarette that disturbs her — and Moira manages a tiny smirk. But she follows her advice. The floor in this building is made of wood mainly, after all. The hallways. The rooms they keep the wounded patients in. The biopods. 

Moira heads for a nearby window and takes a last drag from the comfortable warmth filling her lungs and she sighs, stubbing the cigarette out on the windowsill and throwing it outside. 

The remains of the ash stay where they are and Angela swallows.


	2. Chapter 2

Moira sighs into the frigid midnight air of January 10th. It's exactly one minute past midnight and her shift is over. Three hours to sleep and relax and then it'd be her turn on the clock again, for another twelve hours. 

Not really a shift, no, that's the wrong word — break fits better. A break. She hadn't run straight out of the room Ziegler had been in — taking care of patients — no, she had stood in the doorway and observed everything as though she had all the time in the world. 

And then she'd left, to catch a whiff of fresh air. It'd do her good. She doesn't think that she's able to sleep, not even if Ziegler or one of the nurses readied a biopod for her to have a soothing and warm place to sleep in. The nightmares would still haunt her, she's sure of that. With all the agony around herself, there's no way she'd have a good three hours of sleep. 

But she's tired, she's exhausted, it's been so long since she last rested and Moira feels like she's about to collapse. 

She forces her legs to keep on doing their work, forces her knees straight so they won't buckle, forces her back straight so she won't tumble over. 

She grits her teeth, clenches her jaw. It's cold. So cold. Just like yesterday, in the small chamber . . . and this time, there's no sunlight to fall onto her shoulders and offer her warmth, this time, there's no Ziegler finding her and sitting next to her and holding her hand. 

It'd be an outright lie if she said that she hasn't felt any better at that. But she doesn't know how to feel about the fact that Ziegler has sought for her even in the smallest of chambers and sat by her side and wrapped an arm around her to hold her close. 

She hasn't expected her to try and empathize with her, and in the moment of comfort, she's told her, even though she hasn't meant to tell her - or anyone, for that matter - about what happened earlier that day. 

Moira feels a shiver rake up her back like the claws of a cat and she shudders as a gust of wind hits her hard. She closes her eyes and holds herself close and knows that if she concentrates, she'd be able to imagine Ziegler coming after her and scolding her for risking to catch a cold out here. The wind swirls around her and Moira exhales sharply, turning on her heel to enter the building again. 

Perhaps it'd be a good idea if she actually went to spend three hours in a biopod. It's not like she could really afford it, regarding all the patients in this room and how Ziegler is having trouble finding a full bottle of alcohol to disinfect and clean a wound, scurrying around, blue eyes snapping left and right and she furrows her brows as their eyes meet — Moira's back inside again, looking deathly pale and there are black shadows underneath her eyes. 

What are you doing here, that's what Ziegler's piercing gaze says, shouldn't you be resting. She blinks slowly and steps back hastily to make room for a nurse brushing past, breaking eye contact. Angela glares and turns, focusing back onto her sought out object, finding it on a nearby table and hurrying to a woman's side. 

Moira blinks again, black dots dancing in front of her eyes and blurring her vision. She swallows. The world spins. Her lips slip apart. She closes her eyes and snaps them right back open. She sways and steels herself against a wall, breathing heavily.

A nurse steps towards her, Collins, she recognizes the woman with puffed cheeks and green eyes and messy, curly hair, her first name doesn't come to her mind, though. 

"Doctor?" She asks, her voice feeble and quiet, Moira swallows and closes her eyes momentarily. 

Her throat is dry, her back aches, her eyes burn, she shakes her head slowly. "Doctor," Collins repeats herself and Moira exhales as a hand finds her arm and holds her in place so she won't fall over, collapse on the floor. She's so endlessly tired. She feels like she's about to faint. She probably is going to do just that if she doesn't catch rest anytime about now.

Collins' lips tighten and thin and she begins to tug Moira away from the wall carefully, to a room close by, next to the one they're in. It's full of treated patients in pods that glow, surfaces trickling with golden dots. These are the biopods. The only way to sleep here in peace. ( Halfway. ) 

The redhead shivers and shakes against Collins' side, her hair messy and curling against her forehead wetly, she's sweating. "You need to rest," she tells Moira sternly, and Moira would have laughed if she had the strength to, and helps her out of her bloodied gloves and the lab coat, discarding both nearby and Moira falls into the pod, kicking off her shoes with what little strength is left in her body. 

The nurse pushes her down gently and Moira manages to adjust her position and then she closes her eyes and warmth surrounds her as Collins closes the pod off and it hums to life. Moira shivers against the glowing warmth that collects at the surface and elicits golden light. 

It feels good. So. Good. She's feels warm, comforted, safe. And it lulls her into sleep, a relaxed expression taking place of the troubled one she's worn seconds ago. Her brows come loose, her jaw unclenches, her stiff body sinks into the soft warmth and she exhales in relief. And that's the last thing she does before sleep takes over her and drowns her mind. 

"How is she?" Ziegler asks as Collins enters the room she's tugged Moira from barely two minutes ago. "Did you take her to a biopod?" Collins nods, Angela feels a relieved sigh come loose. "Good. Thank you." And that's it, Angela turns swiftly and rushes off, leaving Collins to herself. 

It's not like Angela doesn't care. She's just under a lot of pressure. Many patients to be treated. So many deaths. Uncountable. And Moira's making things all the harder for her, if it hadn't been for Collins to take her to sleep, she would have blocked the way and slouched around sleepily and probably fallen unconscious soon. 

It's good that she's asleep. Angela is a little soothed now that she knows that Moira will be fine. It's just three hours. But it's better than nothing. And the war won't go on forever. It can't. It can't. 

She swallows down the lump in her throat. 

She can't stop yet. She has to keep on doing her best to save the people here. She has to keep on fighting for what she believes in. Just like Ana says. She has to stay strong. For Moira, because she's done, she's so done and Angela saw it in her gaze earlier, and she understands it. Moira's older than her. She went through more of this than Angela has. She remembers more than Angela does. This has to be worse than for Angela. 

And she understands it and she respects it and she does her damned best to try and help and ease Moira's work as much as possible.  

And the truth behind it all is that Angela cares for her so much it's no longer considered a professional regard. 

Heaving a sigh, Angela skits to assist a nurse. 

It'd have to end sometime. It has to. She doesn't know how much longer she can do this. 

It. Has. To. End.

 

 

When Moira wakes after three hours and drags Angela to the biopod she's been in two minutes ago, she doesn't resist, she's tired, exhausted, — she's grateful that Moira groggily sets the pod up and slips on her gloves and shoes and closes it off once Angela has made herself comfortable. 

Her cheeks are sunken, hollow, jaw lantern — dark shadows circling in a half-moon underneath her darkened eyes. She looks just as exhausted as before, but Angela can make out that the nanobots have tried their best to keep her vitals up, that her body isn't quite as deflated as before, and then she falls asleep. 

Her dreams are wild, bullets to be removed, blood coating her hands, forearms, cold sweat, cries, needles, syringes, blood — so much blood — she doesn't know if she's glad or sad that her sleep ends and a nurse helps her out of the pod. 

Angela can make out Moira's voice not far away, yelling orders : "Reid, over here — he needs immediate treatment, onto the table, I need disinfectant, painkillers, bandages, tweezers, now! No, doesn't matter, I have disinfectant — painkillers, bandages —" 

And she's up in no time, slipping into her shoes and skitting, stumbling out of the room, to see Moira there, standing ramrod straight, she looks wide awake, eyes glinting with determination, hair a red mess on top of her head, slicked back and yet so messy, curly, wet, her skin is sweaty and she has taken off her lab coat, pushed up the sleeves of her brown, blood-splattered sweater, putting on new gloves, eyes wild, jaw hanging looser than usual, she's breathing heavily. 

Angela darts over, looks at the man whimpering in pain breathlessly, he's sprawled out on a makeshift examination table, and she reaches for a knife to cut him out of his clothes that cover his chest fully, careful to avoid the bullet wound close to his heart, she can see that even when half asleep. 

Moira shoots her a look, part grateful, part desperate, and takes the supplies from the nurse that has sprinted over to gather what Moira ordered her to get, not bothering to thank her. She's got something more important at hands. 

She's shaking, her shoulders trembling, Angela observes, she looks like she's about to start crying, but her hands are still, she swallows and steels herself and then she gets to work, pretty much shoving the painkillers down the man's throat and jamming a syringe with the same pain-killing effect into his arm. He moans in pain. 

Angela bites her lip, begins to talk, softly, soothing him, "You'll have to stay still, mister, you'll be fine, she'll take out the bullet and you won't feel a thing if you don't move. Don't look if you don't want to. I can cover your eyes. You will be fine. But please, stay still." 

Moira still doesn't say anything, the man whimpers as the pain begins to numb in his chest and fades away completely after a minute, she's busy cleaning everything around the wound. 

The blonde pats his shoulder as he calms down, "Close your eyes. Think of something nice. It'll all be fine," she promises, and he nods slowly, forcing a ragged breath into his lungs, and Angela takes that as the chance to leave matters to Moira and skit off to assist another nurse, currently busy calming down a sobbing mess of a little child, no older than six, seven, next to the corpse of its mother. 

Reyes comes running in, catching the blonde's eyes, and she doesn't think she's ever seen him more disheveled than right there. He's got the same frantic movements as Moira, the same shocked and desperate expression on his face, and Angela knows that she may not look like it because she's desperate to not let her patients see how hard this hits all the nurses and doctors around here, but she surely feels just as horrible Gabriel looks as he stares at her wildly. 

He skits over, "Jack—" he gasps for air, Angela stands ramrod straight, as do the little hairs on her neck. What? What's with Jack? What's wrong? Her gaze screams, but she doesn't voice it, gives him time to collect himself and his words, he runs a thickly gloved hand through his dark and greasy hair. "Down. Hurt. Shit. Angela, he's . . . hit, injured, splitter bomb hit 'im." 

That's all she needs to know. Her heartbeat slows, everything slows, she can hear the blood pounding in her ears loudly, slowly, heart aching painfully, tears collect in her eyes, she pats the child's head and scurries off, leaving Moira surprised as she rushes past, but she's so fast that the redhead doesn't have any time to ask what's wrong. She whips her head around, catches Reyes' gaze, empty and dull and tired. 

Something happened. What? Someone gravelly injured? Dead, possibly? She can't think of it right now, she has a young soldier stretched out over an examination table and his chest is caked in blood — she cleans it, then fetches some bandages, lifting him up in the slightest to angle his body just so she'd be able to coat his torso in gauze. The bullet lays next to her, retrieved neatly.

 

 

He isn't dead. Angela sobs in relief as she crouches down next to Jack : Jesse has taken him into an old, wrecked, rusty gasoline station nearby, and ordered a nurse to take care of him until Reyes would return, and hopefully with either Angela or Moira to help. 

The nurse — Marina Wölfle, Swiss as well — looks up at Angela as she falls to her knees on the dusty ground and winces at the sight of her dear friend caked in blood and tiny pieces of metal scattered all over his skin. 

She hands him a pill to swallow, Wölfle had sat him up so he could cough properly when he needed to, given him a painkiller already, but Angela needs to make sure he won't feel anything of this. 

And then she grabs her tweezers and begins to pluck the tiny splitters out of his flesh. 

Reyes can't stay with her, and as horrified and worried as he looks, he needs to get back into the combats, lead the team, be a good commander for them. Angela doesn't acknowledge his feeble goodbye in any way, much too concentrated to make sure Jack would be fine. 

 

Moira watches through a window that exposes the view rather conveniently as Jack is supported back to the improvisatory hospital, one arm around Angela's shoulder, hopping on his not-injured leg, face knitted neck pain, but not agony. She decides to not ready a biopod, there are more important cases, he looks like Angela's treated him well, tended to his wounds well. 

At least now her curiosity is sated, it's him Angela went running for two hours ago, Reyes' skin deathly pale as he lead the way. 

For a moment, she allows the thought to linger : Would Angela have run for her that worriedly and hurriedly if it had been her injured so severely? And shoves it away right after, of course she would! Right . . . ? 

Doesn't matter, she tells herself, and swallows thickly, turning around to wipe sweat off her forehead and adjust the pushed up sleeves of her woolly sweater, blue eyes darting around to try and find someone to help.

Angela supports Jack inside, takes him to a cot, helps him sit down, jams a biosalve into his injured biceps, empties the syringe. He's sound asleep moments later as the nanotbots injected into him thrum to life and close the meanwhile halfway clean wounds. 

A deep sigh comes loose from the back of her throat, Angela crouches down next to his cot, elbows on top of it, hands folded and against her forehead. Her eyes are closed, she's praying again. Make it stop. It has to, she knows that, the war can't go on forever . . . that's impossible . . . 

Jesse, who has escorted her and Jack back here, looks around, dazed, awestruck, shocked. This is a whole new level, this is worse than the actual combats. This is a gathering of dead and injured people, sobbing messes, blood, cries, pleas, he's not used to this. 

Jesse's used to putting a bullet through someone's skull artfully, letting them die quickly. 

But the people here are suffering. Mainly women and children, a few injured soldiers. They're suffering, some are dying slowly, agonizingly slowly, they're in agony, and Jesse pats Angela's back quickly, waves at her, and runs out of this hellhole. 

This is Angela's kind of job, because she could never kill someone as easily as Jesse or Gabriel can, he tells himself, she's fine with that, just like he's fine with killing someone trying to kill him. 

Moira shoves some sleeping pills down the man's throat, he sighs out a weak babble of what she assumes is supposed to be a thank you. She strips off her gloves, heads towards Angela, examines Jack quickly, scanning his body. "How is he," she asks, voice monotone, her icy blue eyes more of a dull grey than a biting, flashy icy blue. 

"He'll be fine," is what Angela settles for as an answer, because saying that he's fine would be a lie and she doesn't really want to face the truth : he's horrible. Half of his side is torn, shredded, bloody, 

The redhead nods. It's not a very nice answer, because it isn't a positive thing to say, that he'll be fine but isn't right now, but she accepts it, rubs over Angela's shoulders, pats her back. 

"I'm sure that it'll all be over soon," she says, but her voice sounds far away to herself, she may as well have been off in the mountains. Her words are empty. Empty lies to keep the hopes up. Moira meets her gaze as Angela glances up at her, eyes dull. 

They're dull. No longer shiny, hopeful, as they had been yesterday. The tall doctor feels a shiver rake up her spine, she shudders. If Angela doesn't have any more hope, then who could?

"Are you really?" Angela asks, breathless. Moira looks down at her. And shakes her head. "No, I'm not. But it's the only thought that keeps me sane. Otherwise you may have to throw me to the other corpses as well. Suicide." 

Angela's jaw hangs loose for a moment, eyes wild and full of shock. She gets up, wraps her arms around Moira's neck before she can stop her, buries her face in her shoulder. "Don't," she begs, "don't do that. You can't. I need you here." 

Because you'd die from exhaustion? Moira asks herself. Because you need my help during surgeries, tending to injured? Or because you care for me? She doesn't voice her thoughts, nods instead, eyes steely and cold and empty as she stares through the room and at the wall that stops her vision. 

The blonde slowly lets go at the nod, "Do you promise me?" She asks and holds Moira by her sleeves. She wants to meet her gaze, but Moira avoids it. "No," she says. And pries Angela off herself. 

Let me make it alright, Angela begs in her thoughts, let me help you, please. But she stays silent, looks after Moira. 

The remains of the conversation stay where they are, in her heart, heavy and cold, and Angela swallows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooooo, the encouragement from the first chapter made me so happy i managed to write a second chapter . . . still not so sure if i should just . . . turn this into a fic?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yooo another damn suck ass chapter y’all hahaha i’m sorry —

Inhale. One, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three. 

Moira holds her head in her hands. Another break. Another three hours she should spend sleeping, gathering strength, but she won't make it this time, she won't make it again, she won't manage to sleep without the image of Ziegler's desperate stare eight, nine hours ago, ' Don't do that, I need you here '. 

She won't manage to sleep without the image of Morrison's torn body, which is, at this point, more gauze than skin. 

She won't manage to sleep without the image of her shredded hometown, burning, burning — 

Angela's looked genuinely worried earlier, though. Like she takes her for real when she mentions suicide. Like she believes her every word and trusts each with her heart and soul. 

And she pours her heart into every action she's doing, her hope and desire to help others is what has fuelled her this far, but Moira recalls how dull her eyes had been earlier, next to Morrison, and she feels cold, like she's in too deep, drowning, drowning, in blood, soaked, soaked to the bone, sticky, red, cries and screams — 

Moira snaps back into reality, blinks rapidly, wipes the tears that have collected in her eyes violently, sniffs, nuzzles into her warm, brown sweater for a moment of comfort, and looks around again. 

She's standing in the quieter room full of glowing biopods containing sleeping nurses or patients in them. 

She can hear the mewls from the next room. But they're quiet, deafened out by the wall and the door. 

The redhead begins to walk around, slowly, glancing into each pod that she passes, finding almost all of their faces peaceful or at least neutral, lacking emotion. Only some noses are still scrunched up, some eyebrows furrowed, some jaws clenched.

She sighs, deeply. Inhale. Exhale. She has to calm down, focus. Focus on her work. Many patients are treated. Some are fine again, and some of those have expressed the utmost thanks and left her and Angela and all the other doctors and nurses to tend to newly injured patients. 

They're making progress. They're making a difference. Moira knows that more than half of the people next room would die without their help. She glances into another pod and then she turns on her heel pointedly, hands in the pockets of her bloodstained black slacks, and heads back to Angela. She'd have to help her work so that she could have a break as well. 

Turns out Angela doesn't want that. She glares at Moira and she's so tempted to drag her to a free biopod and force her to sleep, but Moira looks at her so sternly and decisively that she doesn't even try to pick up an argument that would drain them both of what's left of their strength. Instead, she tries to appreciate the fact that Moira intends to help her. 

An hour later, Ziegler almost collapses against her, and Moira has to hold her steady, one hand on her back, the other wrapped around her biceps. 

"You should catch some rest," she says. 

"No," Angela snaps once she caught herself. 

"Angela." Now she has her attention. She never calls her by her first name. Blue eyes lift to meet steel grey ones. "That wasn't a suggestion, it was an order." 

There's nothing she can do about it, Moira's her superior, disobeying an order could earn herself a report to Morrison if they survive this should they be sent out to the field. She can only hiss at Moira weakly, grit her teeth, glare at her and push herself off Moira, and wobble to the biopods. But she stops after a few steps and turns around. 

"It would be terribly awful if my dear superior," she rolls her eyes blatantly, "would be to collapse as well. I'm not going to rest unless you do." 

"It would be terribly awful indeed if your dear superior would be to fill out a report about a horribly annoying and stubborn doctor disobeying her very caring order," Moira bites back, just as Angela assumed. 

"Moira," she says, her tone is pleading, she gestures around. "It's no use to not go and catch some sleep now. Don't be dumb. The others got this. You and I both know that we need sleep. I beg of you, let your body have what it needs." 

She watches her hesitate and consider, bathed in cold sweat and goosebumps covering the entirety of her body. She's shaking. She's quivering, biting her trembling lip, she runs a hand over her face. "Fine," Moira spits, eventually, and starts to walk.

 

 

It takes another day until Reyes walks in and there's a bright, happy grin on his face. Angela looks up when he enters the room full of agony with a face like that, eyebrows raised. Has he gone mad? Or does he have good news? 

She wipes her sweaty hands on her royal blue skirt, stands up, walks up to him. "Gabriel?" She asks, her voice sounds so hollow — 

Instead of an answer, he wraps his arms around her and gives her a tight hug. She stays stiff in his arms, shocked and confused. What's going on? "Angie," he says, voice trembling with happiness, and Angela never saw him like this, close to tears, happy tears. 

"We got 'em. We won. We got 'em under control! All the remaining Bastion units are either shut down or a pile of scrap."

That sounds too good to be true, and yet Angela feels an impossibly heavy weight lifted off her shoulders, boulders alate, fading into bright light and happiness fills her chest, floods her mind, her eyes flicker on like a broken lamp, bright and happy and hopeful and her face splits into a wide grin that matches Reyes'. 

"No," she whispers, blue eyes wide and big as she stares into his brown eyes once he lets go. "Yes," he croaks out, "it's going to be over. We need a few soldiers to stay here, to make sure they won't attack again and report back to us. But we can go home! Jesse and the others are evacuating a dozen civilians from their homes and taking them here. A few scratches, nothing more, I assume. You can handle that, right?" 

Angela nods, without a second of hesitation. "Of course . . . but we have yet to tend to the others here," she says, gestures around, at Moira, who's glancing over her shoulder at the two, observing the encounter from afar with raised eyebrows. 

Though when the blonde shoots her a bright grin and gives her a thumbs up, she seems to grasp what happened and straightens up, turns to face them from across the room, and a smile ghosts over her face as well. 

"The combats are solved and over for now," Gabriel booms through the room, catching attention of every nurse and every doctor and almost every patient. A moment of silence, followed by more and more smiles and Moira feels warm again. 

She runs a hand through her messy red hair and closes her eyes for a moment, wipes the sweat off her brow. "Thank god," she whispers to herself, and for a moment, she forgets her own atheism. 

They're over for now. But the worried thought lingers in the back of her mind: for now, not forever. They're likely to return. But they're over for now! She forces herself to look at the bright side and allows herself another weak smile as she turns to the young male sitting on an infirmary cot before herself, a lopsided grin on his face. 

"That's good," he says, words slurred. 

Moira nods in silence and goes back to cleaning the bloody scratches on his arm. 

 

 

She feels like time goes on so slowly, like a snail slicking its way over hot, sticky asphalt, like glue — Moira wipes the cold sweat from her forehead, shivers, sneezes. She must have caught a cold, she can't explain her state somehow else, cold and yet so hot, her skin is burning and she feels like she'll freeze in this hellhole, and not even an hour later, she's hotter than a furnace, and then she feels like she's freezing again. 

It's maddening, and god, don't get her started on that damned running nose, the steady sniffs, the sighs, coughs — she feels like she's going to go crazy if she spends another minute here.

The only thing that gives her hope and light to make it until they've treated all of the remaining patients and packed the majority of their belongings and apparatuses are Angela's happy eyes with the gentle crinkles and her small smile and the imagination of her bed and holding her beloved bunny in her arms. 

( The only one out of the pack that she has shown mercy regarding experiments, a hazel-furred little ball of adorable-ness, inky black eyes and padding around on the floor ever so softly when she let him out of his cage. ) 

She can hear a nurse next to herself humming Rasputin idly, and Moira sighs, narrows her eyes, squints at the ground to clear her blurry vision. She doesn't even try to understand why she's humming that, her head pounds and her fingers thrum against the wall she supports herself against, subconsciously, to the song hummed by her side. 

Moira sighs again. Amari has confiscated her cigarettes when she caught her outside earlier today, and she would give anything to get it back and have a cigarette to calm herself. 

But Angela would be sure to take them away right after, if she's up for a fight, that is. Because Moira's her superior and she won't let someone beneath her rank just take her precious Marlboro's. 

And on top of it all, leave her the lighter just to tease her. 

She clenches her jaw, holds back a whine and waits for time to keep on going as quickly as possible, searches for things to do, things that don't involve Angela, at best, because she can't look her in the eye anymore. Not after how she lashed out at her shortly after Reyes came stumbling in and booming out their temporary victory. 

It's been about resting, again. Of course it would be that again, what else? Moira, turned on and close to collapsing, drowsy and pretty much half dead, slouching around with a comfortable warmth in her belly that quickly morphed into an unbearable heat that she knew she couldn't extinguish until they're back at the base, and so she's pressed her thighs together, buttoned up her long lab coat to hide the damn bulge and almost suffocated in that terrible heat. 

And Ziegler, caring as she always is, observing, always there, even when she's the last person you'd want to talk to because you have a goddamn boner desperately held down by your slacks and hidden by your lab coat, has approached O'Deorain and asked her to go to rest. 

And Moira, stubborn as she usually is when it comes to that, knew that if she went to rest, the warmth and soothe of it all in the biopod would ruin her damn pants because she's sure that, even though she never experienced that, human beings are in fact able to orgasm in their sleep. 

And she's lashed out at her, cheeks red and shiny with sweat and hair curly and messy and wet and eyes wild, pupils dilated in her state of want and HUNGER. 

And Angela has stared at her like she's never seen another human ever before, taken a step back, because Moira hasn't sounded HUMAN as she'd croaked, half-yelled at her to mind her own fucking business and leave her the fuck alone, and she'd nodded and apologized meekly and Moira can still hear the sound of her heels clicking as she'd clipped away from her and rushed to assist a nurse with patching no more than a scratch, eyes teary. 

It's a miracle that Moira held out this far and taken a few brief walks in the frigid air outside to get rid of the wanton feeling burning low in the pit of her stomach and, more importantly, get rid of the erect length in between her legs. 

It's also a miracle that nobody has seemed to notice anything apart from her being very sensitive when talked to and that's not all too unusual, some assume that it's her period kicking in in silence, some assume that it's the war, but in reality, it's her erection AND the despair of wanting nothing more than to go home AND the fact that she hasn't smoked since yesterday morning and it's almost evening. 

The biggest miracle of it all is that time finally seems to go faster when she starts busying herself with sorting disinfectant and what's left of bandages into boxes, collecting the utensils to retrieve bullets and painkillers. 

And she finds herself finally on the plane back home not all too long after, clutching at her armrest in the last damn row because if the plane crashes, the people in the front will be dead first and she might have a second more to escape. And that's worth it, as much as she hates putting her life into the hands of a guy with a joystick navigating them back to the Overwatch HQ. 

Her head falls back into her neck when the worst is over : the start — and dares a glance out of her window, watching the destroyed landscape beneath. Moira can briefly make out the ruins of her hometown and she grits her teeth, runs a hand through her hair, and looks away, exhales sharply. 

And all shall be well, she recalls her mother's words, and all shall be hell, as her father usually joked in return. Now she knows why. Now she understands his sarcasm. Moira's eyelids drop shut, she pushes the memory away and makes room for rest, for sleep, to the whirring of the engines and to Lindsey Stirling playing idly in the back of her mind  
She doesn't have her earbuds in, but she still recalls how the songs sound, how the graceful notes never fail to make her smile and soothe her. 

She's out like a light seconds later, but that's needless to say regarding her horrible condition. 

 

Hot water pours down her body, she sighs deeply in relief. God, this has to be the first shower in almost two months. She felt sticky and dirty and her hair was so greasy, currently soaked with water and hanging down. 

Her free hand roams, spreads the soap over her body, bare and pale and shoulders are flushed a bright pink from the heat. 

And her erection is gone, no longer hard and desperate, but still throbbing in her other hand, lazy drips of what's left of her cum elicited as she twists her wrist, once, twice. 

Masturbating has never felt this good ever before, but she can feel drowsiness take over her and she skims a hand over her wet face, sighs again. 

Moira feels so at peace. She's thoroughly enjoying this shower, and she's ready to fall right into bed with her favourite pyjamas on and the scent of soap and shampoo clinging to her. She breathes through her nose, imagines the feeling of home. 

Home. Warm, soft, familiar. A chimney? Blankets? No, no. Dead. Broken. Burning. Rotten. Smoke rising from houses and into the frigid winter air in Ireland, but no — she's here, she's at her other home — fuck, she has too many, has had too many. She doesn't even know what home feels like anymore. At home, at ease. What does home feel like? 

Angela. The feeling of Angela? 

Soft skin, flawless save for the tiny scars her experiments with the nanobots haven't been able to conceal. 

Soft hair, golden tresses, thick and spread out like a halo. 

Angelic. 

Blue eyes, full of warmth and love and Moira can picture it so perfectly, in her bed, in all her naked glory ( because she's seen her in nothing but a sports bra, white and black and orange with Overwatch's symbol plastered onto the front, and leggings, going past her knees and to the middle of her calves, tight, skin-fitting - both garments leaving so little to imagination ) , half-wrapped into the lavender-grey blanket, a smile on her peachy, plump lips, full and oh god, what Moira would give to kiss her — 

But why? She allows herself to consider. 

And hot water is still sliding down her body as she works shampoo into her hair. 

Why? 

Angela is beautiful. She's young and brilliant and beautiful and she's kind, sweet, caring. But she's also sassy. She can be so annoying. And yet she wants her, not even sexually, but rather — simply imagining Angela in pyjamas, hair messy and tangled from sleep, barefooted, padding to the kitchen at sunrise, just picturing that makes her hum and close her eyes and smile. 

She wants to call her hers, she wants to leave teasing little bite marks on her neck and wrap her arms around her and rest her chin on top of her head and kiss her and wake up to Angela by her side, bundled up and still asleep so she can admire her . . . sleeping beauty. 

Moira pulls herself from those thoughts, steels herself, exhales, sharply, and turns off the water after rinsing out her hair before it can get cold and take away her comfortable warmth. 

She wraps herself into a towel, dries herself off, rubs her hair dry, combs it back, and slips into the soft fabric of her pyjamas. She doesn't waste much time on blow-drying her hair properly, the ends of her hair are still wet when she skits outside and flicks the light off and half-sprints to her bed, falling into the mattress face down, arms spread and she grunts into the pillow as her head hits it. 

That's how she lays there, for a good two, three minutes, until she turns, yawns like a lion and snuggles up with her blanket and smiles into the fabric widely, eyes closed. 

But even that happy and peaceful smile fades as she drowns in the comfortable warmth of sleep, finally at peace in her familiar bed at Overwatch Headquarters. 

 

She doesn't wake until sunrise bleeds through the blinds that she hasn't closed, too busy enjoying herself and the velvety soft silky sheets and the cool blanket and pillow. The rays shine onto her face, separated by shadows that are the shadows of the not-quite closed blinds. 

Moira stirs in her sleep, shifts, her blanket tangled in her legs and covering her to her hips, and she sighs, eyes slowly opening, squinting at the sunlight intruding her eyes for a split second, snapping them shut right after. Bright. Too bright. Golden — white. 

Angela. 

She curses under her breath and growls and turns around and hides her face in her pillow. Why is the first thing to come to her mind Angela? Why does she haunt her everywhere? At least she hasn't invaded her dreams. Yet. Moira doubts it'll take much longer until she sees her in her dreams. 

But she sees her in her thoughts, almost all the time whenever there's no blood sticking to her skin and no sweat clinging to her body and there's enough time and room in her brilliant mind to think about her.

Moira sighs. 

She can feel the remains of the yet unsolved conflict between herself and Ziegler — caused by her terribly selfish self when she's rejected her indeed only caring offer of rest and a warm biopod so harshly — in her heart, heavy, and Moira swallows.


	4. Chapter 4

A coffee mug is what waits for her in Ziegler's palm the next morning she slouches into the mess hall at a truly ungodly hour, but it's fine, just for today, to slack off and relax and recover from the past two, almost three months. It's pushed into her hands the moment she sets foot into the large, crowded room and she hisses at the hot porcelain suddenly warming her hands. 

Her eyes widen, she looks up from the ground and straight into blue eyes, shiny and bright and sparkly again, and she sniffs. Perfume? Seems like it. Rose, she muses. The thick scent of freshly cut roses. And then her palms burn again and she's pulled back into reality. 

She's quick to twist her wrist so she'd grab at the handle of the mug, opens her mouth to thank her, even though she's still a tad surprised by the sudden action, but Angela only shoots her a smile. "Good morning. How was your sleep?" 

How odd. Angela never asks that. It doesn't even occur often that she pours her a coffee as well. "Morning," Moira replies slowly, still trying to understand what's going on and why Ziegler talks to her about something that doesn't regard her cigarettes ( she still hasn't gotten those back ) or her sleeping schedule or her slight lack of morals. 

Maybe something shifted in between them and Moira hasn't noticed. But that seems impossible. She never misses a thing, she never makes mistakes, this isn't something that would seem like her — but she can't explain it to herself somehow different. She must have missed it. Maybe it had been the minutes of comfort when she'd broken down. Maybe it had been their steady fights about caring for the other discreetly. Maybe this is the apology to yesterday, but that doesn't make any sense, because it had been Moira who shouted at Angela. 

She feels like she thinks too much about this, and she hasn't replied to her question yet. "Fine, I . . . guess, at least a lot better than the weeks before . . . but still not enough, I'm only here because I'm starving." 

Angela laughs at that, her eyes crinkling.

Moira isn't sure if it's the coffee warming her insides or the sound of that absolutely adorable laugh. She pushes the thought off before she can dwell on it for too long. That's not a good idea. Especially not with how confused her emotions are. She'd rather not suddenly burst and do something she'll regret later on, like grasping Angela by her jaw and tugging her in close to kiss her. 

And regarding her still not very stable condition, it's no surprise she's confused with herself and Angela and the world. In addition, she realized just how easily things that seem to be rock-hard in one's life can be turned to dust. Like her hometown. Literal dust. Stamped into the muddy ground. The wet grass, burning. The torn buildings, houses, homes, burning. Home. 

She doesn't start crying again. She doesn't smile back at Angela. She only stares at her mug of coffee and swallows down the gulp that's still in her mouth and swallows after that, to really get rid of the lump that forms in her throat. Makes it tighten. Makes her feel like suffocating. 

There is one thing in this world that Moira O’Deorain cannot stand, has never been able to stand, and will never be able to stand. And that's outbursts of emotion. Especially when it's her that suddenly breaks. It's not okay alone. It's even less okay in front of anyone. She never breaks. But she has let herself break, so very foolishly. And she hasn't stopped when Angela walked in on herself. 

She feels like she's suffocating on the desperate need to push down emotions, especially strong ones like love or hatred or despair. She wants to let them out, but at the same time, she's so very afraid of doing so. Angela's proved herself trustworthy. She hasn't told anyone about what occurred in the dusty chamber. She's held her promise. 

But will she keep it further on? Will she tell someone she trusts very deeply and that one will tell someone they trust very deeply? And so it will spread, Moira O’Deorain, weak — 

Her head starts spinning at the thought of that. It's the entire truth. She's weak, but she's strong for not showing that she is. And that makes her weak again. It doesn't make sense. Her mother always told her to show emotions. That it's okay to cry. That it's okay to be weak. 

But Moira doesn't share her opinion. Crying makes her feel useless. Pointless. Crying itself is pointless in her opinion, it doesn't help problems, it only causes some : a headache, a waste of time, the impression of others thinking you're weak. 

She takes another careful sip from her coffee and knows that she's thinking too much again. It's not good for her to think that much. And she knows that. It causes her to question life, herself, if she's worth just about anything, and has to remind herself that Ziegler held her in her arms not all too long ago and whispered " Don't do that, I need you here " in response to her ( what now seems like a ) bold statement. 

But right there, it hasn't been bold. She's actually been so very close to making use of the suicide pills she carries on herself all the time — for when Talon or someone else might capture her and make use of her and her brilliant mind, so she could and WOULD kill herself : they would never gain any information out of her, never. 

Though perhaps, Talon isn't such a bad idea, Moira thinks with an amused lilt, at least they won't whine about her slight lack of morals and ethics. Like Angela does. 

It's funny, how she can't pinpoint what to think of Angela Ziegler, when she's nothing but an open book anyone can read. Showing her emotions. Being weak. Strong. Happy. Sad. She remembers the absolute horror on Angela's face when Reyes told her Morrison's injured. How does she do it? Showing emotion and not feel like it's a crime to do so. 

It's hard for Moira O’Deorain to show emotion. She's learned that they're usually in the way of a lot of things. She feels, of course she does, she's not a robot, but she restricts herself to let her emotions display on her face or wear down on her actions. Though, as it has to be and always will be, she fails. 

She fails, and she doesn't even like the simple thought of that. Failing. Making mistakes. Sometimes she prefers being a robot over being human. But that's dumb bullshit, she knows that, all she has to do is to get a fucking grip on herself and control herself. And her emotions. 

Or else, Ziegler might find out what she th—

No, no, she will NOT think that phrase to the end, she turns and forces herself to find something to focus on instead of her unsolved feelings. Maybe it looks odd to Angela, who's been sipping her own coffee and watching her the whole time, but Moira can't care any fucking less right there, because the temptation to just CONFESS that she's sorry and —

No! Stop. She tells herself to stop. It's no use, because the thought lingers in the back of her mind distantly and disturbs her thoughts and usually so controlled emotions. Her head is a single mess and she has to clear that chaos up there. And her head hurts. She sniffs.

Oh, right. She almost forgot about her small cold. Maybe that's what makes her feel so despondent. She's tired, and awake at the same time — because of the coffee, she wants to smack Ziegler across her face and kiss her at the same time, she wants to clear her head and leave that mess up there at the same time — because she likes it, she likes how Ziegler has her mind rendered useless. 

Back to Ziegler her thoughts are. 

She could scream in frustration, she could slam her coffee mug down onto the tiled floor and watch it shatter and the liquid splatter across her Oxfords. She could tear her work apart, shred it all, delete all the files, get rid of her equipment, give the bunnies to children on the street or some homes or something like that, pack her bags and — well, then what? 

Her hometown is as shredded as her papers would be. 

Her parents are likely to be dead. And if they aren't, the last thing they'd want is to have their daughter running back to them. 

She could ask Angela to be hers, but that's laughable, to think she'd ever even consider or play with the thought of entering a relationship with her, a non-professional one at that. It's absolutely pathetic and Moira isn't even sure if she wants that. She's just so ready to throw it all away and start a new life somewhere on her own. Find an actual home. 

A place to stay. 

Maybe that's it. Maybe she's just sick of moving places all the time. She's always been the more domestic type. She likes to stay home, or at least somewhere she knows her way around, she likes to be surrounded by familiar things and she's incredibly inflexible and it's hard for her to adapt to new surroundings. Maybe she just wants a new start, a good start, into a new life. 

Maybe she wants to sleep in and never wake up again. 

Moira sips her coffee in silence. Angela hasn't moved. She keeps looking at Moira, at her back, with a slightly tilted head, and doesn't sip her own drink. No. She just looks at her, watches her, observes her and her odd behaviour. "Moira?" She eventually asks, and it feels like they're in that empty chamber all over again. 

Home, Moira thinks, maybe home is just a place to feel comfortable in and to be comfortable with. Maybe home doesn't have to be a place. Maybe home can be a person. "Yes?" She replies hesitantly, glances over her shoulder, turns halfway. 

Home, maybe that's Angela. Because it feels like coming home whenever she looks at her. 

Angela blinks. "Is everything alright?" 

Home, maybe that's Angela. Because it feels like coming home whenever she hears her voice. 

Moira nods. "Of course. I'm fine." 

Home, maybe that's Angela. Because it feels like coming home whenever she feels her touch. 

Angela narrows her eyes, squints up at Moira. "I don't believe you," she says, "you've been acting way too oddly as of lately." 

That blunt statement makes Moira smile. But it's a sad smile. "You're right," she says dryly, "but I told you that that's what I keep telling myself to not kill myself." 

Another blunt statement, and it wipes every possible smile off Angela's face. "Moira," she says, sternly. Uh oh. She knew it would be better to make up a lie, but it would haunt her forever to know that she lied to her — and she knows that Angela only means well. 

"You will not. Do such. A thing." She punctuates her every piercing word with stabbing her pointer finger into Moira's chest and glaring up at her. She's serious about this. Of course she is. Moira smiles. Sadly. And nods. "No, I won't. That's because I tell myself I'm fine. I am. It's true. I'm not injured. I'm fine. I'm not dead or kidnapped and held hostage — I'm fine. I will be. I have been. I'm fine." 

Four times, she says she's fine four. Damn. Times. Angela doesn't believe her. She's scared she'll actually do this. Maybe overdose on an experiment. Maybe shoot herself. Maybe take pills. She's afraid that Moira will take her own life because she's failed in making it alright for her.

It. What? Everything. 

Let me make it alright, Angela begs in her thoughts, her lips part and she wants to say it, but she doesn't. She can't. Instead, she looks up into Moira's eyes pleadingly, let me help you. 

It's the same as before, as it has been before. Angela doesn't like it. She can't hug her. She can't hold her, kiss her head, soothe her. Not here. Not in front of everyone watching. They're used to the two of them fighting and bickering and occasionally being nice to each other, but not affectionate. 

The world spins around Moira as she looks into Angela's eyes, they're the only thing she can hold onto, that and the pressure on her chest, the only things that keep her grounded. Angela. She watches her. 

She looks like something is burning on her tongue. Genuinely burning, and she swallows it with great effort, Moira observes. She arches an eyebrow. So very bold, in a situation like this. "What is it? Spill." 

It's remarkable how Angela still fights with herself for a moment. How she worries her lip, how her hand slips down to lock around her biceps. Moira stays still, lets her decide on if she wants to say it or not. "Say it." It comes out like an order, but it's supposed to be an encouragement. Her gaze is hard, contrasting to Angela's soft worry. 

And she's still thinking, still fighting, discomfort on her forehead in a deep frown. Moira counts to three in her head. And then she rips herself from Angela's grip, turns on her heel pointedly and walks out of the room, fingers chained around the handle of her coffee mug, face made out of stone. 

"Wait!" She hears behind herself, but all she does in return is to quicken her pace. She's soldering down the hall, her appearance could not be any more stoic. Angela's shoes on the ground, fast, her sneakers almost soundless, but they squeak just a little. 

"Wait, Moira . . . !" Tears collect in her eyes, she forces them back. Just when Angela reaches out to grasp her by her arm, she she whips around and glares at her. "What do you want? Bloody hell," she exclaims, "you either the fuck tell me what you wanted to say or I'm going to continue taking my LEAVE." 

Angela sighs deeply, lifts a hand and cards it through Moira's hair. "Look . . . I just mean to help . . ." She doesn't duck her head away. Her feelings are haywire. She blinks. Listens. Nods, curtly, stoically. "And further?" Moira demands, squints down at Angela. 

". . . I'm sorry. I want to help you. Please. I, I don't want you to —" She begins to tremble, her voice breaking, hand tightening in Moira's hair. "—k-kill yourself!" Moira watches her. Her stare is empty. 

"It's just all so pointless, Angela." 

She quivers and then she breaks, bursts out into tears and she leans up to wrap her arms around her neck. Moira distantly assumes that she put her cup down before she came running after her. Her one, free arm locks around Angela's waist. 

"Humans live to die. I don't see any reason in working. I don't see any reason or goal in living. I can work myself to death and I can enjoy my life thoroughly and in full and deep breaths until I die. I don't understand the concept of living. It's a circle of life and death and it seems endlessly pointless to me."

Tears are running down Angela's cheeks now, she takes in a ragged sob and shakes her head. "You only say that because you lost pretty much everything ever important to you. It's not true! Life is about achieving happiness! Life is about — about being happy, Moira . . . !" 

The redhead smiles. It's almost genuine. "So what if the life I have now doesn't make me happy?" Angela sniffs, wipes her tears on the fabric of Moira's shirt, apologizes for it a second after quietly once she realized what she did. Moira hums in return, pats Angela's back. "What do I do then?" 

Angela looks up. "You change it so you're happy. You can do that. Others can't. You can. What would you change?" 

A moment later, she wishes she hadn't asked. 

"Leave Overwatch," that's Moira's answer. 

Because that means she won't see her again. Never again. She bursts out into tears again, because Moira is important to her and she feels like crying, because she cares for Moira so, so much, too much to consider it to be a professional relationship. It's likely to be a one-sided attraction, she knows that, because Moira rarely lets more than three emotions cross her face a day. 

"No," Angela whispers out, "anything but that," she wails. When Moira opens her mouth to object, she leans up to kiss her. When Moira stills against her in shock and her words die in her throat, she sends up prayers to god once more, please let this be the right decision. 

This time, her heart isn't heavy. It's alate and she feels like she's flying high above the clouds. Nothing heavy remaining in her chest from the previous conversation. And she still doesn't even know if she won't fall if Moira won't kiss her back. But for that, she prays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took so long i'm so sorry   
> SKSKSKSK I HOPE YOU LIKED IT   
> yes i know that i'm good at cliffhangers ;)


	5. Chapter 5

Her lips are warm from the coffee or hot chocolate or whatever Ziegler's had in her mug before. She's too shocked to do anything, she just stands there and tries to sort her thoughts, in complete surprise.

Angela never showed any kind of affection, especially STRONG affection like this KISS, before. Except for when she hugged her several times during the mission. 

That had been odd enough, but still appreciated : who doesn't like a hug and a handful of soft and comforting words during a phase of complete darkness and sadness? Moira may restrict herself showing emotions, but she isn't dumb, she doesn't shove the offer away mindlessly. 

Well, not all the time, anyway. 

The problem is : she has no idea what the bloody hell to do when Ziegler very slowly parts from the one-sided kiss and her eyes flutter open and she looks up at her in silence. 

She thinks she sees fear in her eyes for a moment, and that scares her as well. Maybe she should have just kissed back to not make this too awkward. 

That's how they stand, look at each other, for an eternity. 

( No, it's actually no longer than five seconds, five seconds of a terribly awkward silence until Angela splutters out a broken apology. ) 

Moira blinks. She doesn't understand the scrap of conversation for a second until she adds one thing to the other and realizes that Ziegler just apologized to her. "No, look —" 

She tries to word her thoughts, but it doesn't work out the way she wants it to. She doesn't stutter. She doesn't choke her words out desperately. 

It's calm, slow, but she can't find the right words, says it differently from how she means it, deep down in her chest. 

Angela watches her while she speaks, going round and round and beating around the bush and not getting to the fucking point, which is the fact that Moira has ZERO experience regarding romantic relationships and similar things. 

She's too embarrassed to just SPILL the damn fucking tea, so instead, she gets her tongue tied up in her attempts of wording her feelings somehow, so very awkwardly, she says something about butterflies and fear and how unsure she is and goes on about how terrible this very moment is for her and eventually, her voice just breaks and she cuts herself off at that. 

And looks at Angela. And prays that the ground beneath her feet will vanish and swallow her, like a trapdoor, swinging open and back shut after she's gone. That seems like the best thing that could happen to her, because after that fucking awkward speech that hasn't lead to anything, she's sure that Angela is so taken aback that she doesn't want to speak another word with her. 

Her pulse quickens in her chest, her jaw tenses, her fingers curl and clench up into fists uncomfortably, she shrinks a little bit into herself as a panic attack rolls over her. 

Hits her like a truck. 

Washes over her like a fucking tsunami. 

Her head hurts, the world spins again, she shakes her head. 

"Moira," Angela says. 

It's like a voice in the darkness, imagine yourself tied hand and foot against a chair, you don't see anything, blindfolded, and all you can do is scream your throat sore as you cry for help. And then there's this voice. And a warm hand on her shoulder and a pair of lips against her cheek, and she feels like she can finally breathe again, see and hear and feel. 

Those are some good indications, Moira thinks, swallows thickly, shudders, knees going weak and she holds onto Angela, claws at her back as she sinks into her embrace. 

"Moira," she says again, softly, brushes her cold nose against Moira's cheek, "relax." 

Moira does. She forces oxygen into her lungs and back out, back in and back out, stills against her. 

When she buries her face into Angela's neck, she has one thought very clearly in her head : She does ╱ not ╱ want to leave Overwatch. She wants to keep her work up and she wants to achieve greatness. 

Honestly, she has no idea why that little breakdown she had five, ten minutes ago almost made her want to actually throw it all away. Her life's work. 

How dare she even consider? It's been because she felt so, so lonely and sick and after all that she's seen so far, she doesn't want to see any more of that — but at the same time, she knows that will be impossible. 

And so she pecks Angela's neck and lets go of her. 

She doesn't know what she wants. 

She wants to stay with Overwatch and achieve scientific progress, do something for humanity, but at the same time, that's the last thing she wants. 

She wants a life that includes both : happiness and satisfaction. A home. 

That's what she wants. 

A home. 

When Moira stoops down again, but this time, to kiss her, Angela stretches up to oblige and kiss her right back. 

A home. 

Does she love her? No, no, she doesn't. She admires her, her beauty, her brilliant mind, her soft voice, her comforting touch. It feels warm. Homey. 

Maybe she's been looking in the wrong places for too long, sought for happiness in the wrong places, sought for satisfaction in the wrong places. Maybe she's completely overseen the true treasure : the one that's been in front of her the whole time.

Angela. 

A shelter from the storm. 

A warm blanket in a cold winter night. 

A home.

 

 

Moira can't believe the fact that Angela's sound asleep next to herself, blonde tresses sprawled out like a halo around her head on the pillow, wrapped in the blanket they've shared ( emphasis on HAVE shared, because now it belongs to Angela ) and Moira feels like she just walked out of a freezer, because it's so ╱ cold ╱ and she hates it. 

And so she grumbles and begins to poke Angela, tickle her awake. "Scheiße, lass mich—" Angela shrieks moments later, "nein, stopp—" And bursts out into laughter, bundling up her blanket to shield herself from Moira's attacks. 

"Thief, give back my fucking blanket, make yourself useful, pour me a coffee, I'm so ╱ cold ╱ —!" 

The blonde giggles and soothes her girlfriend by stroking over her messy hair, running a hand through it, warm lips pressing against her cheek. 

"Good-for-nothing lazy, you didn't even ask me about my sleep and already start throwing orders around, who do you think you are?" She teases Moira, to which Moira only responds with a grunt. 

"Moira O'Deorain, your superior, and regarding how peaceful you looked, wrapped into MY blanket and laying on MY pillow, I don't deem it necessary to ask you about your sleep." 

Angela plants her lips against her temple in return and nuzzles into her. 

"Good morning to you, too, you terrible grouch. Thank you for not using the chance to make a sex joke out of the situation, though."

 

Moira only grunts in response and tugs at her blanket to roll herself into it, ending up strongly resembling a burrito. 

Angela smiles weakly and skims a hand over Moira’s hair again, smoothes it back. 

“I’ll be right back,” she says and gets up from the warm mattress clumsily.

Her intentions are to be a good girlfriend ( well, she’s not really her girlfriend, but they kissed a few times and they sleep together and live together and and pour Moira ( and herself, because let’s face it, who wouldn’t pour themselves a coffee as well ) a coffee and take the steaming hot cups back to bed. 

The redhead that she’s left back in bed smiles into the pillow and shifts to face the ceiling again. It’s different from how she imagined having a significant other. 

She hasn’t imagined Angela . . . occupied as that in first place. But it’s nice. They still haven’t exchanged the ‘ I love you’s ‘, though. 

But neither of them deem that necessary. In all honesty, it’s better to not tie themselves together by saying that. 

And Moira still isn’t sure if it’s not just attraction or some certain factors that draw her to Angela. She admires her. 

But isn’t that exactly what’s defined as love? Admiring? 

No, love is admiring even the bad sides of a person. 

And Moira isn’t sure if Angela could ever admire and adore ╱ her ╱ bad sides. They’re unforgivable. She’s cold, she pushes others away.

Sometimes she really considers just . . . leaving Angela. 

Pushing her away so roughly she won’t come back to lay beside her in bed. 

Pushing her away so roughly she won’t talk to her anymore. 

Pushing her away so roughly she won’t dare acknowledge her anymore. 

And things would be back to the way they were before Moira let her close, before she allowed her in her life as more than just a co-worker. 

But she doesn’t really want that, because she’s selfish and she relishes in the warmth that’s given to her. 

She relishes in the love that’s given to her — no, no, stop, she has to ╱ stop ╱ imagining that it’s love. 

Because it’s not.

And it will never be. 

She’s so very sure of that, it’s like an ever-lasting rule in her life : Moira O’Deorain isn’t someone to be loved. And she shouldn’t love. She only ever manages to hurt whoever she lets close somehow. 

And Angela is too pure and golden to be ruined by someone as dirty and black as herself. She deserves someone better. Someone like Morrison. And they’d fit together so well, too! The golden couple publicity would approve of. 

Moira subconsciously recalls the distraught and hysterical way Angela went to run for the injured Commander Morrison, and yet again that terrible question that pops up in her head : Would she have done the same for her? 

And yet again that unsure answer : Of course she would have. Right . . . ? 

She knows she could just ╱ ask ╱ Angela if she’d be just as worried and if she cares just as much, but she’s too shy for that. She feels like it would be terribly awkward to do so. She feels like it would be terribly wrong to do so, to put Angela under pressure. 

And so she just stays silent and looks at Angela as she enters the room again, nudging the door open with her elbow and kicking it shut with her heel. 

“Hey,” she says softly as her gaze falls onto Moira’s cloudy eyes and her slack features. “What is it?” She asks, and Moira’s heart clenches in her chest : what has she ever done to deserve her? She hasn’t done anything. 

But it was Angela who kissed her! She has to remind herself. It was her who kissed her first. 

She stays silent, still trying to find out what Angela must think of her and if she cares for her and if she does, how much she would give up for her, how much she’d do for her. 

The clink of the two porcelain cups set onto the wood of her nightstand makes her sit up and sigh. 

Angela looks at her out of the same worried, blue eyes as they have too many times already. She feels cold. 

It’s only fitting that two warm arms curl around her and pull her in close. “Moira,” she mumbles, crawls onto the mattress to adjust their position. “What happened?” 

Again, all over again, she only shakes her head and dismisses her silently. But this time, Angela doesn’t let go. She doesn’t pull away. She stays where she is, doesn’t move an inch away. 

Moira isn’t sure if she likes that. It’s reassuring to know she’s there, even though she told her off, but she feels like she’s suffocating. 

Angela cards one hand through her hair steadily, runs her slender fingers through copper curls, works tangles apart and kisses her lips soft as feather, touches her like she’s made of glass that would shatter if she even exhaled too harshly. 

“What do you want, Moira?” 

The question stops all of her thoughts at once. 

What does she want? 

What are her deepest desires? 

What is her biggest wish? 

Angela makes it sound like she can fulfill whatever it is, like she can snap her fingers and with a ding and some glitter, that specific thing suddenly appears. 

If only it would be that easy, Moira thinks with a pang of melancholy in her chest, if only it would be that easy. 

“You,” she says, eventually, and looks up.

It’s random. It’s random, and more importantly, it’s the first thing that comes to her mind when she thinks of her deepest desire. 

It’s random and Angela’s face brightens, her face lights up like a Christmas tree and she plants her lips onto Moira’s again in a long kiss. 

“I love you. You knew that, right? You know that, right? I love you, Moira.” 

She wants to object, start a discussion, the arguments she has for not being suitable to be loved line up already, but they die in her throat, all the but’s, all the no’s, all the why’s — 

But she realizes that it wouldn’t lead to anything. 

Her heart beats slow in her ribcage, she’s not afraid. Not anymore. And so she dares to lean up and kiss her back, eyelids fluttering shut as the words leave her lips in a hushed whisper : “And I you.” 

Things go fast from then on. It’s a haze, Angela sighs against her lips, Moira’s hands on her hips, sliding up to possessively grip at her sides, her curves, cold noses pushed together, lips warming and moving and parting and tongues fighting and bodies shifting until Moira has her pinned down and one hand twisted into Angela’s messy, golden curls —— 

It’s really fast, though so slow in the moment, like they both don’t dare to go any faster, like they both don’t dare to move any quicker, but their hearts are slamming against their ribcages as though they’d just sprinted half a mile.

One hand flushed up Moira’s loose gray t-shirt, slipping beneath, up to her breasts, small and yet perky in their current position, warm fingers find a slightly stiffened nipple and roll over the nub, the hand in her hair tightening and tugging harshly, “Angela,” echoing through the room, bouncing off the soundproof walls and Angela smirks as her head is yanked up.

“Yes?” She manages to ask tauntingly before cold lips crash down onto her warm ones. 

The steam is still rising from the surfaces of their hot cups of freshly poured coffee, but they’re all but forgotten. 

Moira doesn’t respond, way too busy getting Angela out of the panties she’s wearing, white and bright pink striped, but she’s disturbed by Angela getting her hands on her bottoms and so she decides on helping her first.

They fumble with Moira’s loose sweatpants, skilled fingers entwined with the tangle of the knot of the waistband that keeps them around her narrow waist and Angela manages to even swap their positions so she’s on top of Moira when they slip off.

A nervous laugh on Moira’s side when they finally slide down. Dark blue Boxers.

That’s not the surprising thing about what she has beneath her sweats. 

It’s the least interesting, actually. 

Angela’s jaw slackens as she realizes that Moira O’Deorain isn’t exactly female. Her mouth waters. “God,” she manages and swallows hard. 

They’ve come this far. It’s odd how quickly it went. Too fast. Maybe they should stop. Go back to their usual day. But Angela can’t get her eyes off the faint bulge beneath the thin, dark fabric. 

“I should have maybe mentioned that —“ Moira starts hesitantly, to explain herself, apologize indirectly as she usually does, but Angela extends a hand and palms at her erection cautiously. 

Nothing happens, except for Moira jolting a tad — because the pressure is faint, but surprisingly good. “— or not, go ahead just how you’d like, um . . .” 

Angela prods and pokes at the erect length and glances down at Moira for a moment. 

“I don’t mind,” she says, and the redhead feels like a huge weight is lifted off her shoulders and replaced with the lightest of wings to carry her aloft and into the soft sky. 

“I’m an atheist, but : Jesus Christ, Holy Mother Maria, thank God —“ It’s supposed to be a joke, but Angela understands the message behind it and smiles softly. “What did you expect? Did you think I’d push you off? Tch.” 

Moira grits her teeth, rakes a hand through her hair. “Some have. Don’t judge.” Angela’s smile drops. “Excuse you, ╱ what ╱ ? That’s horrible, if they’d cared, they wouldn’t have given a fuck —“ 

She’s silenced by a quick “No,” and upon a questioning gaze, Moira elaborates.

“No, I get that some just aren’t comfortable with the thought of . . . being fucked by a woman and not a man. For some, it’s not natural. They grow afraid because are not not sure how to deal with it, as they don’t with other things they don’t know and similar.”

Her lips form a soft ‘o’ and Angela nods in silence. “I . . . understand.” 

Moira nods as well. “Good. Are you still sure . . . ?” 

Her nod turns enthusiastic, heat rolling through her once more. Her smirk turns devilish again. Her palm presses down against Moira’s shaft. 

Moira, in turn, shifts. Uncomfortably, as Angela notices a moment too late, when Moira backs up a few inches. “Look . . . another thing. I’d . . . prefer being in charge. If that’s okay? Please —“ 

Oh. Oh. She doesn’t like to bottom. Of course. That would make sense. Moira bottoming would be delicious to see, how she looks when she’s vulnerable, how she looks when she’s weak and senseless, out of her mind, her entire self rendered useless. 

But it wouldn’t fit her personality at all. 

It makes sense. 

“Of course — I’m sorry. Really!” Angela’s quick to apologize and make things alright again, she kisses her exposed collarbone and smiles at the way Moira rests her hand in the nape of her neck reassuringly. 

“It’s alright, I just —— don’t like being under control of others, it’s nothing that goes against you as a person, I simply . . . am not comfortable with it.” 

Angela nods and kisses her sharp jawline, one hand at Moira’s waist and the other grabbing the sheets beside Moira for support and balance. “Of course. It’s alright. Should I just lean back and — um — let you do this, then?” 

That question is so very awkward and heat spreads into Angela’s face, but it shouldn’t be, because she did this before, with men as with women, and it’s nothing entirely new to her to have a partner that likes to be in charge. 

The redhead nods, once, curtly, and pushes Angela off herself to be able to sit up. “Off with the unnecessary garments,” she orders. A shiver runs down Angela’s spine. 

It’s her demonstrating, domineering, hard, ordering tone, like a raw demand, serious and defined. 

Even if she’d tried to, she wouldn’t have managed to resist. She’s surrendered already, with that quick question solved, Angela knows her place and she hopes to be able to return the favor to Moira someday. 

“Perfect,” Moira utters when she takes off her panties and slips them down her ankles. 

“Thank you,” is Angela’s breathless answer and she’s rather surprised when Moira leans down in between her legs. 

Extends her tongue. 

And licks a long, deep swipe through her slick folds, eyes closed, sweat beading on her hairline, copper tresses wet and curling against her forehead, hands at her waist to keep her in place.

The sight. 

The feeling.

Angela can only surrender and drown in it all. 

It’s perfect indeed, to quote Moira. 

And to Moira, it feels like coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW I SAID TUESDAY  
> but some shit happened and it took me longer than it would have iM SORRY :C
> 
> ‘ lass mich ‘ basically means ‘ leave me alone ‘ ( and google translate wont tell you that because it’ll say ‘ let me ‘ but i’m german I KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT ) and ‘ scheiße, nein, stopp ‘ means ‘ shit, no, stop ‘ 
> 
> BYE I HOPE YOU ENJOYED ?  
> THINGS ARE GONNA GET STEAMY NEXT CHAPTER


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter of this ,,,, book —  
> man i can only place a big fat thank you down here to anyone who did me the honors of reading this, and thanks for the encouragement and support and help and ugh i’m so happy — by the way, this is eXpLiCiT cOnTeNt kids gO oUt therE aNd siN. bye !!
> 
>  
> 
> also i have a tumblr 
> 
> clap clap clap 
> 
> find me on @/fluffysoftblanket cause man blankets are great bitch

She’s reduced to a blushing, wanton mess. “A—Angela.” One hand wrapped around her length, chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. 

Since Moira really doesn’t like the simple imagination of being ridden or dominated somehow else, with her laying and Angela on top of her, the blonde has suggested something rather bold and Moira isn’t really sure if she can do that.

It’s literally nothing other than to jack off in front of her. 

And even as arousing as it is ( and as aroused as Moira is ), she feels so embarrassed in front of her, fingers coiled around her erect member, standing straight and proud and arching towards her stomach a little. 

Well, the only good thing is that neither of them are inexperienced. It could be more awkward than it already is. 

Angela smiles at her softly. “Moira, you can do it. You manage to fuck people into oblivion, but you don’t manage to get off in front of me? You love me, don’t you? Why is it so hard? If you’re not comfortable —“ 

She sighs, cuts herself off. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be pushing you. I don’t want to push you. But — you see . . . the thing is, I just . . . want you to have some fun . . . as well. Even as odd as that sounds.” 

Moira clenches her jaw in return, eyebrows knitted, eyes narrowed, cheekbones prominent with the sweat that glistens on every piece of skin that Angela can spy. 

But she doesn’t say anything, she only looks down at herself and her dick and the tangled and messy sheets from the previous two rounds they’ve had. 

Maybe she should consider allowing Angela on top of her and pleasuring her. It would be less awkward, she’s sure of that. 

“I don’t like being vulnerable,” she finally admits, “I don’t like knowing that someone can make me — weak.” 

Angela’s smile turns a tad sad. She leans in and pulls Moira into a slow kiss, searing hot and dry lips molding together. “Moira,” she breathes against her, a hand snaking up to brush knuckles up against the tip of her shaft.

It’s hot, Angela knows that, it’s hot and she isn’t quite sure if Moira likes it that way. 

She sure liked having her on all fours, exposed, slick running down her thighs after a good round of spanking, shaking and begging for her master to just, please, fuck her well. ( And she has, so well that Angela had tears running down her face, moaning and sobbing for Moira to allow her to come. ) 

“Moira,” she purrs against her lips when there’s no sharp inhale and no hand moving up to stop her own hand skimming over Moira’s erect length. 

Gingerly, daringly, she pries Moira’s fingers off her shaft and replaces them with her own. 

And then she breaks the kiss, allows Moira to inhale and collect herself and look at her, into her eyes. 

They’re darkened with lust, desire, but there’s a glint of fear somewhere beneath. She’s genuinely afraid of unraveling. In front of someone else. In front of herself, the knowledge that she let herself unravel in more than one way—

“Moira,” she says, to catch her attention. 

She doesn’t hum, doesn’t reply in any way verbally, but instead, her eyes snap back to meet Angela’s. 

“Do you want to continue or go to sleep?” 

That’s a good question. Sleep sounds good. But what the fuck does she expect her to say, with her hand wrapped around her still erect shaft? 

Moira huffs out a sigh and buries the length of her nose into Angela’s cheek. “Finish this off and we’ll catch some rest,” she utters into the soft skin of her jaw, plants a kiss against it and shivers as Angela obliges and begins to work her fist up and down the length of her cock. 

A pleasured sigh comes loose from Moira’s throat, she’s always been rather quiet, but never completely soundless : that’s impossible, just imagining Angela doing this sends her squirming. 

Under many other circumstances, Angela would have asked if this is alright, made sure that her partner is comfortable, because she doesn’t believe in punishment or pain during an act that’s supposed to be loving. Though, she has in fact liked the domineering roughness Moira has treated her with earlier very much. She couldn’t ever do that to another person, though. That is for Moira to do.

But the relieved sigh encourages her, and she smiles into Moira’s neck and brushes her thumb over the redhead’s tip, eliciting another gentle sound. 

Angela leaves tiny bite marks along the nape of Moira’s neck, smoothing her tongue over the marks to soothe them, eyelids closed as her grip turns firm and she pumps her hand down the warm length. 

Beneath herself, Moira’s breathing quickens and becomes erratic as she sucks in air desperately, shuddering with pleasure— she’s growing impossibly close, and Angela’s hand is still not coming to a halt, she still rubs against her tip, still strokes her length. 

Cheeks pumped full with red and lips shiny with spit and every inch of skin glistening with sweat, that’s what Moira looks like, a sweaty and shivering mess as she comes, her orgasm stroked out by skillful, warm hands, Angela’s name on her lips in a shaky, quiet whimper.

If it hasn’t felt like home before, now it really does, as she sinks into her beloved’s embrace and nuzzles into her shoulder as kisses are scattered over her neck, guiding her through the aftershocks.

Now it feels like coming home and never going anywhere else.


End file.
